Surge protectors protect voltage sensitive equipment connected to electrical, communications, and signaling lines by discharging high voltage signals or current surges to ground before the high voltage signal can damage the equipment. Communication systems employ large numbers of surge protectors to connect voltage sensitive switching equipment and other equipment to outside cables. Communication lines, which normally carry relatively low voltage message signals, are subject to high current surges caused by lightning and other phenomena associated with the location of the communications lines.
Often, communication lines are bundled for logistic reasons including simplifying line routing. A communication bundle can include over 100 lines. Because of the large number of lines, connecting surge protectors to each of the lines is a labor-intensive task. One conventional device for connecting the communication lines to the surge protectors is a device known as a protector block.
A protector block provides a rigid structural platform for supporting a plurality of surge protector modules for coupling them to multi-line communications cables. Generally, protector blocks come in various sizes, including ones that handle ten, twenty-five, fifty, and one hundred surge protectors for coupling to an equal number of communication line pairs. The design of communication line and protector assemblies is currently limited to the availability of a specific protector block configuration. The protector blocks are rather expensive to produce, making the flexibility of their design rather limited.
A protector block assembly is fabricated as a single slab of plastic insulating material. On one side is a plurality of wire-wrap pins, one for each wire. On the opposite side, there is, for each wire-wrap pin, a female socket electrically connected to the wire wrap pins. The pins and the sockets are typically arranged in groups of five or six, with the pins in each group having a specified configuration depending on the type of surge protector module being used. The pins of the surge protector module, regardless of whether it has a five or six pin configuration, are inserted into the appropriate socket to establish a compression fit electrical connection with the socket and the wire-wrap pin.
There are two conventional methods for connecting communication lines to the protector block: wire wrapping each communication wire that is located within the communication line to the pin on the protector block or terminating multiple wires to a connector and connecting to a mating connector on a connectorized printed circuit board that is flow soldered to the protector block using a conventional flow soldering method known in the art.
After the communication cables are wire wrapped to the protector block, the communication cables are anchored to a metallic or plastic hood that extends over the pins of the protector block. The free end of each cable is usually equipped with a connector so that the entire assembly may be easily connected into a communications system.
In certain applications, there is a need to create a cross-connect between two or more lines of a communication cable. The cross connect allows incoming communication lines to be connected to multiple equipment lines for testing or rerouting communication signals. A conventional device for cross-connecting cables is known as a cross-connect block that is placed in series with the line and/or equipment pins on the protector block. The connections are made by wire-wrapping conductors to the pins of each block. The front side of the cross-connect block is a field of pins or connectors, where communication lines can be connected and disconnected with ease. Typical configurations include the following: wire wrap pins; insulation displacement connectors; and screw down terminals. Again, significant effort is spent wire-wrapping pins to integrate the cross connect block. It is noteworthy that the effort for connecting communication lines to a cross connect is in addition to connecting the communication lines to one protector block.
Alternatively, communication cables may be cross connected by way of a connectorized printed circuit board that is flow soldered to a cross connect block. This solution, however, as well as the use of a cross connect block wire wrap pins limits production rates and generally increases the cost of assembly. In addition, this assembly requires a significant amount of space in the equipment rack or cabinet. There is a need, therefore, for allowing the required connections to be made in a more efficient manner.